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THAT WAS SIX MONTHS ago now.
Remember when I was supposed to talk to that kid PotatoHead’s Database Architecture class about the Arcade? I missed it because I was in court that day. And then it was summer break. Then I had to do PAX and more podcasts than you’d wish on your worst enemy.
It was a busy summer. That’s my point. I finished the game and busted a little crime ring and sat for more than three hours of interview footage for the Netflix documentary.
The game has grown organically the last couple months. Apart from the local news interest, it’s all been word-of-mouth so far, but it’s already making me enough in sales to cover my new rent. Once the Netflix doc goes live, I’m gonna be real busy.
But that’s not until tomorrow. I had this tiny window in my schedule, and I grabbed it to settle an old debt. So that’s what brought me back to my alma mater to tell a crowded classroom everything that happened.
And then I asked them (as you do), “Any questions?”
PotatoHead raised his hand first. He was right in the front row, and he’d spent the whole story on the edge of his seat.
“Yeah?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Hey. How do you get past the fight in the speakeasy?”
“In the game?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’ve been stuck there since Thursday.”
I shook my head. “I’ll tell you afterward. Any questions about Exelichai?” I asked the class.
That got me the questions I wanted. Someone asked me what it cost, and I said, “It’s free to try. Free to build. You only pay when you make money.” And I pulled up my sales report on the projector to talk through the way payment splitting works.
Someone asked, “Is that your real sales data?”
“Yeah!” I felt a little smug.
“Like...you’re showing us your personal financial information?”
“Yeah.” I felt less smug.
Someone else said, “Did you really make a thousand dollars yesterday?”
That brought it back.
A small guy in the back row raised his hand. When I called on him, he asked, “Can you do this even if you’re not a programmer?”
“You can! With the payment splitting, if you’ve got good ideas and you’re good at putting pieces together, you can build a whole game without writing any code or making any art or anything. And everyone gets paid.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “I’m going to make a game.”
I laughed. “Why are you here if you’re not a programmer?”
He pointed to the professor. “He’s my dad. I’m just waiting to go home.”
The professor raised his hand then. When I called on him, he asked, “Are you hiring developers yet?”
I grinned. “Not yet. Not yet. But if any of you want to make your own games and compete with me, I’d be happy to teach you what I know. Just look up my game and send a friend request.”
Money conversations kept them interested for a while. We talked through the payment schedule and how discovery worked.
Eventually PotatoHead raised his hand again, and I called on him. He wasn’t interested in selling games. He asked, “What happened to the girl?”
“Trina?” I asked, playing it as cool as I could. “We’re dating.”
That got a couple cheers and whistles in a room full of Computer Science majors. But PotatoHead shook his head. “Not her. The girl with the gun.”
“I told you. I never saw her again.”
“Then that’s it? Kidnapping and a crime ring and a sexy killer, and there’s no resolution? There’s no closure? We’ll just never know?” He sounded traumatized.
“I didn’t say that,” I told him. “I’m dating a detective, remember? And she’s very curious what became of Cass.”
“So what are you saying? There’s going to be more of ‘The Girl with the Gun?’”
“Even better,” I said. “There’s going to be sequels.”
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The End